Any organization or organism seeking to improve does so by changing some aspect of the current condition. An athlete seeking to improve her 10,000 meter times, trains by running longer distances at slow paces and shorter distances at faster paces.  These training regimes may can result in sore muscles and breathlessness (I know, I’ve been there).  However, the athlete knows the pain associated with training is what leads to improvements in performance. In essence, the improvement comes from the change in training regime.

In many work environments, however, we loose sight of the connection between improvement and change. We focus on change and ignore the reason for change — change is the vehicle for improvement.

Charles Kettering, a famous early 20th century engineer once noted "The world hates change yet it is the only thing that has brought progress” (source: http://www.happypublishing.com/blog/15-change-quotes/).

Perhaps the reason “the world hates change” is because we focus to much on the change and too little on the improvements? Or perhaps we are comfortable with our current state and don’t care to improve? Or perhaps we don’t believe the proposed change (whatever it is) will lead to an improvement.

What do you think?

Zombie Initiatives

Recently, a colleague shared with me a story about an initiative that continued well past its useful life.  Without getting into the details, the initiative, which had good intentions, resulted in formation of a committee to review requests to use an IT application in a specific use model..  The “good intent” was to ensure that, early in the life of this use model, there would be special oversight to ensure success.  That was the good intention.  After three years and several hundred applications, the committee was still meeting on a regular basis.  When asked under what conditions the committee would deem its work completed, no one knew the answer. In fact, no one recalled who chartered the committee or who was authorized to deem the work of the committee done. What was clear was that the committee charter did not include the conditions under which the committee work would be deemed complete – even if it was just the passage of time.

Committees that never finish their work and projects that never end are best described as Zombie initiatives because you cannot “kill them” even if you try. In LEAN terms, it seemed that the wastes of Over-Processing and/or Over-Production were present here.

Often, these Zombie initiatives become such a fabric of daily work that no one even questions, “why are we doing this.” Yet, by not questioning, “why are we doing this”, we are creating the wastes of over-processing and over-production over and over again.  Imagine the resources we could free up to work on customer-value-added or business-value-added activities if we could kill Zombie initiatives, whether the initiative was a project, a committee, or a regularly scheduled meeting.

Perhaps one technique to prevent future Zombie initiatives is a strong charter for the initiative that states the conditions that will terminate the initiative.  And one of the conditions should always be the lapse of time.  The sponsor can always renew the initiative if he or she desires. But, barring that explicit renewal, initiatives should terminate or sunset.

Pursuit of Perfection

Many definitions of LEAN thinking include the concept of relentless pursuit of perfection.  In a recent LEAN class that I taught, one of the students shared an excellent quote attributed to Vince Lombardi:

"...we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it.  But along the way, we catch excellence..."

I think this sums up the intent behind continuous improvement - it helps us move towards excellence while acknowledging that excellence is a transitory state.  If one doesn't keep improving, today's excellence becomes tomorrow's mediocrity.   

As an example of the changing state of "excellence", I share the story of Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps, two of the greatest competitive swimmers of all times.  Until Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in the 2008 Olympics, Mark Spitz held the record for most gold medals won in a single Olympic Games - seven gold medals in 1972.  However, none of the times achieved by Spitz in 1972, many of which were world records, would have earned him qualification to compete for the United States team in 2008.  As an example, Spitz would have finished 55th of 58 swimmers in the 200-meter freestyle and 33rd of 44 swimmers in the 200-meter butterfly.  

We can  argue about what was the root cause of the dramatic improvement in athletic performance - was it the athletes, their equipment, their training routines, etc. However, what is clear is the "bar" was raised over the 30+ years between Spitz and Phelps.  Just as in athletics, continuous improvement is necessary to maintain a standard of excellence.

Good reads on LEAN thinking

Several of my LEAN Basics students have asked about some good reading on LEAN thinking. I am sure there are many great sources.  Two good sources are:

Lean Thinking

Womack, J. P., & Jones, D. T. (2003). Lean thinking. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

The Toyota Way

Liker, J. K. (2004). The Toyota Way. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Do you have any favorites that you would suggest?

Internal and administrative process as value streams

This week, I have been teaching a class on Lean Basics.  One of the premises of LEAN thinking is that LEAN focuses on the stream leading to value as perceived by the customer.  During our discussion several students asked if that meant that internal or administrative processes cannot have a value stream.  After a passionate debate, we proposed the answer to that question is "maybe".  I shared a discussion posted on lean.org on this topic:

http://www.lean.org/FuseTalk/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=54&threadid=1943

I am not sure what the "final answer" is but there is an argument that certain internal processes could indeed be "supporting value streams."

Incidentally, if you are interested in LEAN thinking, I highly recommend bookmarking lean.org and/or subscribing to their content.

What do you think?

Does LEAN work in service organizations

Given the origins of LEAN in the Toyota Production System, it is easy to see how LEAN thinking can be stereotyped as being "something for manufacturing."  However, the degree to which LEAN thinking has been adopted across a broad variety of industries outside of manufacturing is remarkable although not surprising to a LEAN thinking practitioner.

To those wishing to explore LEAN thinking in non-manufacturing organizations, I would encourage you to view this presentation by Karen Martin:

http://www.slideshare.net/AMEConnect/value-stream-mapping-for-non-manufacturingmartinreplacement

And, read/ subscribe to  this blog by Mark Graban on LEAN in Healthcare:

http://www.leanblog.org

After reading this material, do you still believe that LEAN = Manufacturing?

Value stream mapping

One of the most powerful LEAN tools is the value stream map.  We tell our students that value-stream maps are similar to traditional flow charts but are unique in that value stream maps always depict the customer as well as time.

The power of value stream maps is they enable us to "see" the process. By "seeing" the process, we can see the process in all its glory and all its ugliness.  Waste (remember Tim Woods) becomes obvious.  If you've ever heard the saying "getting there is half the fun", that can apply to the process of creating a value stream map.  The process of value stream mapping creates a safe way of understanding the value stream in a non-defensive manner.  I've found that cross-functional teams that come together to create a current state value stream map often say things like "I never realized you had that problem".  Or "I thought you were doing ....".  The level of cross-functional understanding that comes from collaborating on a current state value stream map creates a degree of trust that is remarkable.

For those wanting to learn more about value stream mapping, I highly recommend "Learning to see" by Rother and Shook. 

Rother, M., & Shook, J. (2003). Learning to see: Lean Enterprise Institute.